The Great Railway Bazaar (1975) By Paul Theroux

 

One needs to read the wikipedia biography of author Paul Theroux prior to attempting his well-known book The Great Railway Bazaar. It is not just a book about trains, or even necessarily a travelogue. It is more like a time capsule; a sociological observation of the world as perceived in the early 1970s.

His journal begins as Theroux leaves London to travel across Europe and Asia and back, on a rather epic train trip which will take nearly four months. He will give lectures on English and American literature in cities along the way.

He left a Great Britain that at the time was in decline, its Empire days long over, its economy struggling. The train will go to the coast of England on rail, but since the English Chunnel is still decades away, he will have to take a boat to the shore in France before his train ride will really begin. Once in Paris, he will board the famed Orient Express, or should I say its remnants as it too has declined with the times and the aftermath of two world wars. Still, it remains somewhat good traveling, though no longer an Express – while one stays on the train, one changes countries, operators, and quality, as it makes its way to the outskirts of Istanbul.

He clearly liked the multi-cultural and urbane aspects of Istanbul, one foot in Europe, the other in Asia. And he clearly did not like the trip segments in the rest of Turkey and northern Iran, with nothing good to say about Afghanistan or Pakistan. His experiences in India, just twenty some years after Independence is a mix of highs and lows. Urban environments left over from the British occupation of Delhi, and extreme poverty throughout the rest of the country. He will again have to resort to boat trips to cross to Sri Lanka and on to what was then called Burma. Travels in Thailand and on the Malay peninsula down to Singapore were better and somewhat unified. Cambodia does not have a well-developed rail system. His trips in Vietnam from Saigon up to Danang are greatly limited because the country was still a war zone in the early seventies.

From Vietnam he will again travel by ship, this time to Japan, which he covers extensively from bottom to top, before transferring across to Vladivostok at the western edge of Russia, where he boards another famous rail line, the Trans-Siberian Express, to Moscow, then trains to Berlin and back to London.

While that is the geography of the trip, his interactions with other passengers, from luxury class to cars that bordered on freight cars is of equal importance in the book. His commentary is biting at times, in fact most of the time. My initial reaction to this was that it was routine American arrogance, but then I had to stop and ask myself: why is this man even associating with poor people, and doing it well? Turns out he wasn’t just “slumming” as a rich tourist, his background was as a journalist, with a history as a Peace Corps volunteer in the early 1960s in Mali and Angola before moving on to Singapore. His interests and abilities to connect with people were real, as were even his harsh commentaries, not only on the populace but also of the so-called “developed” world.

Recommendation: Yes, though it is not always a pleasant read, it is definitely an interesting one.